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Facebook employees who have lost a $600/mo. housing subsidy for living in Palo Alto may want to point the finger at their new adult supervision, COO Sheryl Sandberg, but a tipster tells us they only have themselves to blame:

A friend of mine who works at Facebook told me that they have recently revoked the $600/mo. subsidizing of rent in Palo Alto because too many employees were banding together in groups of 4 or 5, renting a "chill pad" in Palo Alto, and pocketing the rest. Some pocketed as much as $300/mo. My friend told me the bandits [were] actually living in SF.

"Bandits" indeed. The whole point of the Facebook housing subsidy was to foster community by keeping Facebook employees living near each other in Palo Alto, in walking distance of headquarters. Ganging together to rent small apartments in Palo Alto while living in San Francisco is fraud, plain and simple.

But should we be shocked it happened? Many Facebook employees, some of whom make as little as $34,500 per year, are cash poor, and even the better-paid employees can hardly afford a Palo Alto mortgage. Zuckerberg's resistance to selling out has kept the company independent, but it also means employees' shares are only worth something on paper. Keeping Facebook independent may validate Zuck in his quest for peace in the Middle East, but some of his overeducated, underpaid, Camus-reading troops would prefer that their Meursault just shoot the Arab.